


The Sacred Art of Stealing (and Leaving)

by KirkyPet



Series: How Furiosa Lost her Arm and Narrowly Avoided Becoming a Wife [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: F/M, Headcanon, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pre-Mad Max: Fury Road, encounter with a villain, ships in the night, travelling circus, unknown father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8498173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirkyPet/pseuds/KirkyPet
Summary: Furiosa asks Mary about her father.Brookmyre fans will find this all very familiar.





	

Furiosa is almost twelve... 

Mary Jabassa looks up from milking the goats to see her daughter pass by, dabbing at a bloody nose and split lip, but with an air of a fight well fought. 

"Playing nice, I see...?" 

 _'You should see the other guy'_ is Furiosa's usual response on those occasions. She just looks a bit thoughtful now. 

"Anything wrong?" 

"No, just Murph and me having a conversation about fathers." 

Mary has been expecting this, since the arrival of the men's clan that morning. Furiosa was getting to that age. 

"I'd said my dad was a trader...Murph said, 'what, like Big Fat George?', so I walloped him." 

Mary smiled, "No, your dad was nothing like Big Fat George." 

"Tell me more about him?" Furiosa settled down on the dusty ground by her mother's feet. 

***** 

"For starters, he wasn't a trader, not really. It's a bit hard to explain _what_ he was, so I just say trader – that saves a long story to people who wouldn't understand anyway, you know?" 

Furiosa nodded sagely. She'd lost interest in stories since she was old enough to ride one of the two tiny scrambler bikes the clan kept for their young ones. Kicking up dirt and practising her one-armed shooting was far too absorbing to give much thought-time for stories. She still knew it was best to tailor a story to your audience. But of course her mother would give her the proper explanation denied to others – _she'd_ understand. 

***** 

"He was an artist." 

"What, like pictures?" 

"Kind of...he and his friends used to make pictures and sculptures out of salvage that wasn't good for anything else." 

Furiosa shrugged – she couldn't imagine what else there was to make pictures from. 

"But Zal – his name was Zal – mainly did magic tricks." _'_ _Zal_ _',_ _Furiosa_ _repeated to herself._  

"Magic? Was he a wizard?", Furiosa asked excitedly, before remembering she was a grownup now and didn't believe in wizards anymore. "Sounds like a wizard's name anyway", she muttered, reddening at her mother's grin. 

"It was mainly card tricks, sleight of hand stuff. But he could make anything disappear. That's why he and his friends didn't stick around long..." 

"So you didn't know him long, then? How long was he here?" 

"Just a few days. They had to keep moving, you see. Some people were after them." 

"Who? Why?" 

"Some powerful man who he'd stolen from." 

"Dad was a thief?" Furiosa frowned. 

"I'm not telling this very well" said Mary to herself. "I'll just tell you what he told me." 

"He and his friends had always been travellers in the Wasteland. Not on the run, it was just the way their families had lived for generations. Their group had crossed paths with this convoy of heavies. The leader of the gang was friendly, especially when he saw Zal and his father do their conjuring tricks. He said he could use people with skills like that in his gang. When Zal's father refused to join them, he got nasty. Threatened to kill their family if they didn't steal something for him." 

"This leader – he called himself the General – was at war with a rival gang, and he wanted to steal a particular treasure of theirs. To give him a better chance of taking them over. In short, if Zal and his friends didn't steal this treasure for him, his father would be killed. So they did it. But the General killed his father anyway...and the rest of their clan." 

"Why?", asked Furiosa, appalled. 

"Some people are just like that" her mother replied. "Just love to have power over other people – hurt them because they can. But the General was too arrogant. He thought he'd won, thought he owned the Wasteland because he had his heavies and now had a hold over his rivals. He kept your dad and his friends to use them again, thinking he'd broken them. But they found a way to steal not only the treasure, but half of the useless shiny things that gave the General his authority. Sabotaged their trucks on the way out and put something in the water supply – something that would make them very sick. All without being seen – the gang never knew what hit them until your dad and his friends were well away." 

"But the General wasn't going to forget, so they've been moving ever since." 

***** 

"But for all that...he could still laugh, have a good time. We had some great parties when they were in the Green Place. They would perform all kinds of random things – drawing and making stuff – no request stumped them. They'd do dances to a music box they had...and the magic tricks – I volunteered when he called for an assistant and he said I was a natural. Just flirting, of course, but I learned a few tricks from him." 

"Will you show me?" 

"I'll try – haven't done them in ages, might have lost the knack." 

***** 

"Did you love him? Was it love at first sight?" Furiosa asked, almost embarrassed. Mary was surprised – was her wild little Fury getting into a romantic phase?  

"It's Val – she's been _reading_ " explained Furiosa hurriedly. "She'll want to know that kind of thing." 

Mary laughed, "Not sure if I believe in love at first sight. And as many books start with hate at first sight, and they work round to love, by and by. Two sides of the same coin, I suppose. But no, I didn't love him. I liked him a lot. He made me laugh. Called me his Amazon. I said I thought Amazons had to be about seven feet tall." 

Furiosa grinned. Her mum was tiny. She'd always wondered where she'd got her height from. "I suppose _he_ was tall then?" 

"Yes, he was a big guy. Tall, green eyes, light hair. You've got my chin though, and my curly mop. He was lovely..." Mary mused, eyes focused somewhere in the past. "He only told me his whole story after...( _reddening)_...whenever they were preparing to leave." 

"Were you sad when he left?" 

"There had never been any question about them moving on – but we half-joked about me coming with them. At least I think he was joking. I did think about it. His friends were nice guys and we got on well. And there was no real danger – they had survived so long and had always avoided trouble. But I didn't want to leave the Green Place and the mothers. And could you imagine living with just a lot of boys, _all the time_?", she asked with a wink and a grimace. 

"Sounds awful" agreed Furiosa. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily based on 'The Sacred Art of Stealing' by Christopher Brookmyre. It wasn't intended to be such a retelling - I just picked Zal as a template for Furiosa's unknown father - but his history translated surprisingly well to the Wasteland. And it might prove relevant to later sections...


End file.
